Okla.’s Chinese-Owned Farmland Ban has Exempted Smithfield Foods

This story was produced in partnership with ArtDesk, published by the Kirkpatrick Foundation. The Kirkpatrick Foundation is also a donor to Investigate Midwest.

Oklahoma lawmakers have passed measures limiting foreign ownership of farmland in response to concerns about Chinese nationals and companies buying agricultural land in the state.

While approximately 4.3 percent of Oklahoma farmland is foreign-owned, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s most recent filings, most of that is held by Canadian and European companies for renewable energy projects. Less than 1 percent of that share is Chinese.

Still, anti-China rhetoric has largely driven legislation, and a recent poll shows Republicans nationwide are concerned about Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland. Despite that concern, this new state legislation includes exemptions for Chinese-owned food supply companies.

The carve-outs specifically exempt Smithfield Foods, the only Chinese-owned company with farmland in Oklahoma. Smithfield Foods, owned by China’s WH Group, is not affected by the restrictions and continues to raise hogs on roughly 2,575 acres in northwest Oklahoma.

Oklahoma’s restrictions mirror a broader national movement in mostly Republican states to curb foreign farmland ownership, driven by security concerns over countries the government deems “hostile.” Yet, unlike states such as Arkansas, Oklahoma lawmakers have shown little interest in forcing Chinese-owned companies already operating in the state to divest or limit their ability to expand.

In 2023, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin ordered the agri-chemical firm Syngenta, owned by the Chinese conglomerate ChemChina, to sell its 160-acre research site and fined the company $280,000. The move followed a new state law restricting foreign investments from certain countries.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders touted the decision during a press conference announcing the Trump Administration’s National Farm Security Action Plan, a twelve-page outline aimed at “addressing the imperative for agriculture security in America.”

“I’m so proud of the fact that Arkansas was the first state in the country to kick a Chinese-owned company off of our farmland and out of our state,” Sanders said at the press conference in July. “And we made them pay for it. Very Trump-esque.”

During the same press conference, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro brought up Smithfield Foods, noting that after its purchase by the WH Group, it “now basically controls an eighth of the world’s pork supply.” Counties where Smithfield operates in Oklahoma — Beaver, Harper, and Ellis — are even highlighted on a map included in Trump’s plan. Neither the plan nor those involved in its rollout specified any steps they might take to force Smithfield to divest.

The Smithfield exception

Oklahoma Senate Bill 212 expanded existing restrictions on foreign ownership of farmland.

The law, which took effect in November 2023 — around the same time Arkansas ordered Syngenta to divest — could have impacted Smithfield Foods’ operations in Oklahoma. But the following year, lawmakers added an exception: landownership restrictions do not apply to foreign companies that have an agreement with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS).

CFIUS is an interagency committee that reviews foreign investments in American companies and real estate to see if they pose national security risks. It can approve, block, or require changes to deals to protect U.S. interests.

WH Group’s 2013 acquisition of Smithfield was cleared by CFIUS, effectively shielding it from Oklahoma’s foreign ownership restrictions.

“We’re honoring the Constitution by those international corporations being vetted by the federal government,” says Oklahoma State Sen. Brent Howard, a Republican from Altus who introduced the legislation that shielded Smithfield.

Smithfield Foods has repeatedly rejected claims of “infiltration” of the U.S. pork industry by the Chinese Communist Party, emphasizing that it is managed by American executives. “We currently own approximately 85,000 acres of farmland [in the U.S.], and that number has declined considerably since the 2013 WH Group acquisition,” says Ray Atkinson, a senior director at Smithfield Foods. “The farmland we own does not present a national security risk and represents less than 1/100th of one percent of all American farmland.”

Enforcement remains selective

During a September hearing at the Oklahoma State Capitol, a handful of lawmakers and state officials convened to discuss the perceived threat of the Chinese Communist Party in the state. Guest speakers at the hearing included Jan Jekielek, a journalist and editor for the far-right media outlet The Epoch Times, and Tom Rawlings, policy director of State Shield — both outspoken anti-China organizations.

Although the guest speakers provided no concrete examples of Chinese interference in state politics, they advocated for a state-level Foreign Agents Registration Act, which would require anyone acting on behalf of foreign governments to disclose their ties.

During his presentation, Brad Clark, general counsel with the Oklahoma attorney general’s office, turned the discussion to farmland. Clark explained how the new laws can bolster the state’s crackdown on illegal marijuana operations, some of which are run by Chinese individuals.

After Oklahoma legalized medical marijuana in 2018, the industry has drawn an influx of out-of-state growers. Alongside that growth, there have been reports of labor exploitation and illegally operated farms, including some linked to Chinese organized crime.

Clark says the attorney general’s office currently has 150 pending cases involving illegal marijuana farms. But in an interview with Investigate Midwest, he did not specify if any of those cases involve Chinese nationals or illegally owned farmland, citing the ongoing nature of the investigations.

The office says it has no closed cases related to illicit land use.

Absent from the discussion was Smithfield Foods, the only Chinese-owned company that has lobbied state officials nationwide while also owning farmland in Oklahoma.

In 2024 and 2025, Smithfield spent at least $1.58 million on lobbying and more than $90,000 in political contributions during the 2024 election cycle. The company is represented on the board of the Oklahoma Pork Council, a trade group with registered lobbyists.

During the hearing, Howard asked Clark whether SB 212 has forced any foreign companies in Oklahoma to divest.

“We received questions early on from corporations on mergers and acquisitions as they were going through those processes and came to the realization that SB 212 was taking effect soon,” Clark said, in response. “[They] needed to restructure that merger, that acquisition, so it’s highly likely that [divestment] has been involved.”

The attorney general’s office declined to answer Investigate Midwest’s questions about which corporations altered or abandoned their merger or acquisition plans, or answer specific questions about Smithfield Foods and potential divestment.

“The attorney general is against and will fight any individual or entity that exploits Oklahoma jobs to foreign nationalists or others who are not Oklahomans,” Clark says. “And that would certainly include foreign adversaries like China.”

Clark also noted that no one from the Trump administration has yet reached out to the attorney general’s office to work on the National Farm Security Action Plan, the administration’s report that highlights the counties where Smithfield Foods operates in the state.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and other Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation have been vocal about what they see as the threat from China and the need to restrict foreign ownership of farmland. Last year, Stitt issued an executive order aimed at reducing Oklahoma’s exposure to the Chinese Communist Party.

On the federal level, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma introduced the bipartisan Security and Oversight of International Landholdings (SOIL) Act of 2025, calling for mandatory CFIUS review of foreign agricultural land purchases. Oklahoma U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas introduced the Agricultural Risk Review Act of 2025, which would make the secretary of agriculture a permanent member of CFIUS.

Stitt’s executive order, which directs the state’s retirement system to divest from foreign adversary countries like China, makes no mention of Smithfield Foods and potential divestment, and the bills introduced by Lankford and Lucas earlier this year are pending in Congress.

Stitt, Lankford, and Lucas did not respond to requests for comment.

Although Trump’s National Farm Security Action Plan emphasizes protecting the country’s farmland, it also calls for efforts to “strengthen domestic agricultural productivity.”

Smithfield Foods controls an estimated 23% of the U.S. pork market, while JBS, a Brazilian conglomerate, holds a similar share of the U.S. beef supply—a fact that was pointed out by Kansas senator Roger Marshall during the plan’s launch.

Both JBS and Smithfield went public this year, a move that could help them expand operations and further solidify their presence in the U.S. food system.

Despite introducing legislation across the country to restrict foreign ownership of farmland, lawmakers do not appear motivated to target companies like JBS or Smithfield, or to bring more of the food supply chain under domestic control.

A study from Michigan State University analyzed 143 bills aimed at restricting foreign ownership of agricultural land, introduced across 34 states, along with the actions of more than 6,700 state legislators. Despite China’s nominal makeup of total farmland in the state and across the country, the researchers found that fear and skepticism about Chinese influence in the US is what continues to drive the legislation.

“Of all the farmland that’s owned by foreigners, Chinese entities have a stake in less than 1% of that,” says Dr. David Ortega, a professor of food economics and policy at Michigan State University and one of the study’s authors. “We are targeting interests from specific countries that can lead to rises in xenophobia and discrimination.”

Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Our mission is to serve the public interest by exposing dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism. Visit us online at www.investigatemidwest.org.